The revenue-related allegations flying at Hewlett-Packard will not slow down or redirect a new accounting standard on revenue recognition that has been in development for years.

H-P has accused senior management at its Autonomy software business, which H-P acquired last year, of skewing revenue figures to inflate key metrics and entice a buyer. H-P says it has found evidence that Autonomy improperly accounted for hardware sales and transactions that were licensed to third-parties in ways that overstated true software sales.

H-P took a whopping $8.8 billion goodwill impairment charge at the end of its fiscal year, only a year after buying the United Kingdom business for more than $11 billion. H-P says $5 billion of the impairment charge is linked to accounting improprieties, while $3.8 billion is tied to H-P's stock performance and the market as a whole.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board are nearing  completion of a comprehensive new standard on revenue recognition for both U.S. and international rule books that would provide new direction on the kinds of issues H-P has raised. That doesn't mean, however, that the two boards should slow up or change course, said FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman as a national regulatory conference of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The boards have been working for years on the new standard, which would replace hundreds of pieces of guidance in the United States but would expand the guidance for international rules.

“We don't know enough yet about this particular case to know, but rest assured that every time there's a situation like this we endeavor to find out if it involved fraud, or if it involved standards,” Seidman said. The board has published a discussion paper and two proposed rules, accepted comments on all of them, held roundtables, and performed additional outreach to assure its standard is sound, she said. As such, she's confident the board has covered all the bases and doesn't need to pause and look at the H-P allegations as a discrete issue. “This has been widely commended as one of our best run projects, in terms of the outreach, of anything we've done recently,” she said.

Hans Hoogervorst, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, said he also sees no need to revisit any of the numerous decisions the two boards have made in light of H-P's allegations. “I think we should go ahead,” he said. “We're not going ahead in a blind rush. We hope to get the standard done.”